A plastic bag, flying high in the air,
Whirling around and around.
Floating in the whirlwind, without a care,
In the blue above the ground.

Dancing in the sky, amidst the clouds,
Higher and higher still.
No fear, no sorrow, no qualms, no doubts,
Borne on the thermals, without a will.

Lost in oblivion, high in the blue,
Where she’ll come down, nobody knows.
Floating in a realm, not for me or you,
Wherever the wind, decides to blow.
By Juan Olivarez 

The plastic “T-Shirt” bag is perhaps the most well-known plastic object across the globe. Plastic bags are distributed at supermarkets, piled in pantries, and buried in landfills. They contain our lunches and laundry, before infiltrating our oceans, seafood, and waterfowl. In the last few decades, they have become Public Enemy Number 1, as governments around the world debate how to regulate them. In addition to their place as disruptors of animal life, plastic bags have become symbolic of poverty. They’re tangled in trees and float through the air “without a care” on a windy day, and yet big-box department stores continue to dispense them at alarming rates, often in the form of “double bagging.” [1]

Plastic bags weren’t always a staple of our grocery store experience or a fixture of our daily landscape. Why, and when, was the plastic bag invented? Can we live without it? Do we want to? How has this seemingly innocuous object become the subject of so much controversy? After all, it’s just a bag…

 

 

Before the Bag

 

[1] Olivarez, Juan. “A Plastic Bag.” PoemHunter.com. August 14, 2011. Accessed May 01, 2018. https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-plastic-bag/.